ASW14

Wow, #ASW14, what a show!

Was it just me or was there a lot more anticipation going into ASW this year? Maybe it was a combination of the excitement of kick-starting the business year off or for quite a few of us just a desperate break from the frigid weather conditions back home. Whatever the reason, it appeared that the motivation levels were high for all attendees and I believe the show exceeded expectations. Yeah Boooooy!

Speaking of Flavor Flav, it was pretty cool to see him in person as I’m an old school rap fan. Mainly because I’m just old….and grew up listening to tapes of Kool Moe Dee, The Boogie Boys and of course Public Enemy.

I don’t know what is about these rap shows – I mean Affiliate shows – that we go to but they’re definitely entertaining. Anyways I’ll put away the tapes and get back to talking about ASW14 and my man Flavor Flav. For anyone that was at the show could see – better than Flavor 😉 – was that he was pumped for ASW14 as well and going hard! Put your hands in the air, put your hands in the air, put your mother frank and beans hands in the air, Affiliate Summit!! Great job Darren Blatt on pulling together a great line-up and literally packing the house!

Without getting carried away with my man crush on Flavor let’s jump over to Affiliate Nation. Having gone to the Affiliate Ball early that only guaranteed one thing for me – yes, I was definitely standing in a long ass line-up at Tao for Affiliate Nation. Some day my business will be a sponsor but until then I’ll have to rely on the generosity of others like Steven Sauve from MaxBounty who saved me from dying a slow death in that line. Maybe he appreciated that I live in the burbs with two kids and don’t get out much.

Passing on some knowledge

On that note of successful entrepreneurs helping out budding entrepreneurs, congratulations to JP, Steven and the crew at MaxBounty on all of their success! Earlier that night I had the chance to chat with Steven and with 10 years of slow and steady success and getting named the #1 Affiliate Network by mThink…..who’s not going to take the opportunity to pick his brain?

OK, back to the party, outside of having heavy hitters like Tone Loc, Warren G, and 2 Live Crew rocking it there was also some industry heavy hitters like Steve Monti from SiteScout, Kevin De Vincenzi from XY7, Carter Matzinger from KSix, Scott Richter from Affiliate.com, George from GetAds and Native Rank popping bottles and I think I saw some dance moves. I even crossed paths with Brad Waller of EPage who somehow completely lost his voice. Unfortunately been there, done that but not to the extent of having to need a typed out message to communicate. Get well Brad and Congratulations on the success of all of your companies!

Besides the great parties on all nights there was some business to be done and the Meet market, scheduled and chance meetings in the hallways and the Exhibition Hall didn’t disappoint. For us, we were mainly focused on crossing paths with our recruitment clients, picking up more clients and showcasing that we recently extended our Recruitment Network with AffiliateManagementJOBS.com  – thanks for everyone’s support and encouragement there!

Overall, the experience at ASW14 was fantastic as the companies in our space are getting stronger by the day, expanding aggressively to grow revenue and grab up market share. With that comes great career opportunities for Affiliate Managers, BD staff, Media Buyers, etc. The future is bright and we’re all doing our part to grow our industry!

Instead of diving into the other days in detail I’ve created a Top Ten list of my favorite experiences that I enjoyed at the show – in no particular order – here goes:

Top Ten ASW14 experiences

1. Spending time with new clients – International ones at that. International and US and Canadian expansions, nice!
2. Being brought to some interesting parties by the Vikings. Well at least one of them had a name tag with “The Viking” on it.
3. Getting to meet and get my picture taken with Hulk Hogan. The man’s a legend.
4. Flavor Flav!
5. Getting the opportunity to shoot the breeze with Jeremy Schoemaker. Great conversation as I really enjoyed his book and he’s wicked smart.
6. Getting some time with Steven Sauve from MaxBounty. Who’s not going to try to get advice from someone who’s been in business for 10 years and has the #1 rated network?
7. Catching up with other industry veterans.
8. Hanging out with the crew from Whatrunswhere.com.
9. Having a room 5 minutes from the conference.
10. Finding a charging booth for my phone. I hate you “Roaming”!

What’s your top 10?

I’m guessing that taking a picture with Hulk Hogan will be on a few lists.